Semantics reading group meets today (May 8), at 8:00 pm, for the last time in Spring 2008, with a very special program featuring two WCCFL 27 practice talks!
[Thanks Aynat!]
From Aynat Rubinstein:
SRG meets today (April 24) for a final reading related to the theme of events that has guided us this semester.
The reading: parts of Robert Truswell's 2007 dissertation, Locality of Wh-movement and the Individuation of Events, especially section 3.2.
The place: Jan and Aynat's place, Northampton.
The time: 8:00 pm, Thursday, April 24.
[Thanks Aynat!]
SRG meets today (April 10), 8:00 pm, at Jan and Aynat's place in Northampton. The plan is to discuss Peter Lasersohn's 1992 L&P article Generalized conjunction and temporal modification.
[Thanks Martin!]
SRG meets today (March 27), 8:00 pm, Amy Rose's place. The goal is to finish the discussion of chapter 4 of Angelika Kratzer's The Event Argument and the Semantics of Verbs. The discussion will pick up on page 65.
[Thanks Aynat!]
SRG will convene at Jan and Aynat's house today (Thursday, March 6) at 8:00 pm to read and discuss chapter 4 of Angelika Kratzer's book The Event Argument and the Semantics of Verbs. Exciting warm drinks will be served!
[Thanks Aynat!]
SRG meets next on March 6. The plan is to read chapter 4 of Angelika Kratzer's book The Event Argument and the Semantics of Verbs. We'll have the where and the when for you next week.
[Thanks Aynat!]
The Syntax Reading Group and the Semantics Reading Group join forces this week to prepare for Veneeta Dayal's colloquium on Friday. The plan is to read Dayal's The universal force of free choice any. The meeting will be at Amy Rose's place, starting at 8:00 pm. The goal is an informal, inclusive discussion.
[Thanks Annahita!]
SRG meets today (February 7), 8:00 pm, at Jan and Aynat's place in Northampton. The plan is to read
Carlson, Greg. 1987. Same and different: Some consequences for syntax and semantics. Linguistics and Philosophy 10(4): 531-565.
This semester's SRG will feature better refreshments, more people with their own copies of the paper, and fewer designated presenters!
[Thanks Aynat!]
SRG meets today (November 29), for Maria Biezma's practice talk advocating an expressive analysis of exclamatives in Spanish (abstract).
For the first time in recent history, SRG will not convene at Aynat and Jan's place! Instead, the group will meet at Anisa, Muhammad, and Noah's place. They can't hear the door, so ring the doorbell! Come around 8:00 pm and bring whatever food or drink you like!
[Thanks Martin!]
SRG will meet at 8:00 pm on November 1, at Aynat and Jan's house. Andrew McKenzie will lead a discussion about Bill Ladusaw's paper on the thetic/categorical-distinction (Thetic and Categorical, Stage and Individual, Weak and Strong), and some reactions to it. All are welcome. Bring food and drink, if you like.
[Thanks Martin!]
SRG meets today (October 18), 8:00 pm, at Jan and Aynat's place. The meeting will feature a presentation by Elizabeth Smith (Fall 2007 visitor from OSU). Elizabeth will talk about her recent work on the semantics of English comparative correlatives (title and abstract).
SRG will meet this Thursday, October 4, 8:00 pm, at Jan and Aynat's place. The reading is Kennedy and McNally's 2002/2005 paper "Scale structure and the semantic typology of gradable predicates". Write to Aynat or Chris for a copy of the article
Come energized after the Freeman lecture to enjoy an evening on adjectives!
[Thanks Aynat!]
Anastasia Giannakidou will visit the SRG today (September 20), 8:00 pm, at Jan and Aynat's place in Northampton. She will talk about tense and mood. A draft of the paper, 'Time for mood: the subjunctive revisited', is available here.
Anastasia will also be available to meet with students throughout the day tomorrow.
SRG will have a celebratory meeting on Wednesday, May 16, 8:00 pm. See Florian for additional details (place, things to celebrate, etc.).
[Thaks Florian!]
Syntax Guru Roumi Pancheva is speaking today (April 26) in a joint meeting of the Syntax and Semantics Readings Groups. Her talk, joint work with Uffe Bergeton, is called 'On the history of English reflexives and intensifiers'. The meeting starts at 8:00 pm at Amy Rose's place.
The semester's final meeting of the Syntax Reading Group will be on May 3. Maziar Toosarvandani will present.
[Thanks Cherlon and Florian!]
SRG meets today (April 12), at Jan and Aynat's house in Northampton. The plan is to read Jacqueline Lecarme's paper 'Tense in nominals'. Aynat will lead the discussion.
[Thanks Florian!]
A special meeting of SRG this week: Craige Roberts is in town all week, and she has agreed to give a special SRG presentation on her paper Only: Presupposition and implicature. The meeting is today (March 29) at Jan and Aynat's, starting at 8:00 pm.
[Thanks Florian!]
SRG is delighted to announce a special edition: Craige Roberts from OSU will be our guest on March 29, and will present work on Only: Presupposition and Implicature. We will meet, as usual, at Jan and Aynat's place at 8:00 pm.
SRG will meet next on Wednesday, March 14, 8:00 pm, Aynat and Jan's place. The topic will be Robert van Rooij and Katrin Schulz's paper 'Exhaustive interpretation of complex sentences'.
[Thanks Florian!]
The various reading groups are in their planning stages for the semester. Here's a mapping from groups to their current organizers, whom you should contact if you're new to South College and would like to receive news about meetings and the like:
| Acquisition Lab | → | Youri Zabbal |
| PhG | → | Kathryn Pruitt |
| SRG | → | Florian Schwarz |
| Syntax | → | Cherlon Ussery |
Semantics Reading Group will meet on Thursday, December 30th, 8pm, at Jan and Aynat's place.
We will discuss parts of Paul Portner's dissertation on "Situation theory and the semantics of propositional expressions" (thanks to Valentine for making that available electronically!).
We will focus on the first part of chapter 4. If you would like to contribute to the presentation, contact Keir. As always, liquid contributions are also welcome.
FlorianSRG will be meeting again this Thursday, 8:00 pm, at Jan and Aynat's house. The group will continue the discussion of Philippe Schlenker's 'Be Articulate'. Last time, they made it through section 3. This week, they'll look at the rest of the paper. Jan and Florian are willing to lead the discussion, but they would welcome further helpers --- let them know if you're interested!
[Thanks Florian!]
SRG meets today (October 19) at Jan and Aynat's house, starting at 8:00 pm. The group will discuss Philippe Schlenker's paper Be articulate.
SRG meets tomorrow (October 5) at Jan and Aynat's Northampton pad. The meeting with consist of two practice talks plus beer, wine, and discussion.
SRG meets today (September 21) at Jan and Aynat's place in Northampton, starting at 8:00 pm.
[Thanks Florian!]
The SRG will continue to meet on Thursday evenings this semester, and Jan and Aynat have graciously agreed to continue hosting the event at their Northampton residence.* The group's first meeting will be on September 21, starting at 8:00 pm. It will likely be a planning meeting.
For those of you who are new to South College: the SRG is completely student run and consists mostly of student presentations and student-led discussions of articles and the like. It is a first-rate place for you to try out new ideas and to give practice talks for conferences. There are always nice things to drink and munch upon.
*Last year, it was Jan and AMT's residence, but AMT has gone north (way north). So: same place, new name. We're not sure whether continue hosting is felicitous in this sentence. There is enough here to fuel an entire SRG meeting (with martinis).
The SRG is contemplating a special Sunday, May 21, meeting, to celebrate the end of the semester.
From Florian Schwarz:
Dear SRG-people,
once upon a time there was no SRG. There only were poor lonely semanticists sitting in their respective armchairs trying to understand the meaning of things on their own. Occasionally, they would whine about their lonely efforts, and after doing so for quite some time, the whinees were getting sick of all the whining. 'You don't want to face all these lambdas and formulas alone anymore', said one of the whinees, 'so why don't you get together with other poor souls like you and do that stuff together?' But the semanticists were dragging their feet, and wouldn't get anywhere with these plans. So the whinee, not one to turn down any organizational challenges, took things in her own hands, and told the semanticists to come to her house every once in a while to talk about their problems. And, knowing their weaknesses, she wisely provided an additional incentive by offering to serve martinis at these meetings. Thus was the birth of SRG.
Surprising as it may seem, this is not so terribly long ago. Indeed, the woman with the martinis is still amongst us - but just barely; all attempts to lure her into the world of lambdas failed, as she has accepted a phonology job (yes, the woman with the martinis is a phonologist). It therefore has been concluded that a post-ultimate meeting of SRG has to take place to honor the brave efforts of our founder.
I'm slowly coming to the point:
A final meeting for the semester. Maybe Sunday (the 21st)? If you are at all considering joining us for this historical event, could you drop me a line and tell me whether or not you're still around on the 21st?
Florian
PS: The woman with the martinis does like a little semantics to chew on with her martini, so we should come up with suitably light and digestible topics (maybe some of Krifka's puzzles?)
Update from the woman with the martinis
Dear semanticists etc.,
This morning on the way to campus I was informed by Florian that he had spent the previous evening writing what he described "Semantics Reading Group eulogies". It has since come to my attention that what one might term a bonus SRG meeting has been scheduled for Sunday, May 21st, in my very own living room at 3 Hampton ave, apt. #27. I would therefore like to add my two cents to the all-call for this event quickly, before you stop reading any more emails on the subject. (Next slide.)
1. First: reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. I am not actually scheduled to die thus summer; I am merely moving considerably north. Although I can perhaps see the source of the confusion, I assure all concerned SRGers that central Alberta lies this side of the river Styx, and while sometimes it does freeze over in a hell-like way, it can also become very mild for a few weeks during what the locals call "summer". (Next slide.)
2. For anybody keeping track: Semantics Reading Group wasn't really and truly my own original idea... in the sense that it wasn't my idea even a little bit. From what I've been told, it has been around for many years -- just with varying amounts of vigor, cross-talk, and/or liquor. I therefore feel compelled to point out that while history is a little hazy, I am pretty sure that the original anguished whining which Florian evoked so masterfully was in fact a thinly-disguised attempt to make me throw parties, and in fact that some of those long-ago lambda woes were just a sign of people itching for a good semantics brawl. (Next slide.)
3. So, without getting too squishy or sacchrine about the whole thing -- um, I do hope you'll come have one more SRGe, because I honestly think there's a lot of academic merit in sitting around provoking people and plying them with martinis until they try to explain to you what dogtastic* modality is, and the tiny part of me that's a semanticist is very happy to think you'll all keep meeting in the living room and doing this when I am gone (see 1). (Next slide.)
... Very well. As you were. See you soon, see you on the 21st, and special thanks for Florian for arranging my death so well. Yours as usual,
AMT.*Before you write in -- okay, okay, I now know this isn't really the term, but shouldn't it be?
Today (May 4) is the final meeting of the SRG for this semester. The group will gather at Amy Rose's house at 8:00 pm. Andrew McKenzie is slated to report on his work on quantification in French and other languages. Check out the abstract below.
The group will also do some planning for the future, by asking:
Semantics Reading Group meets today (April 20), at 8:00 pm, at Florian's house.
Jan Anderssen will give a practice talk for WCCFL 25: 'Generalized domain widening --- uberhaupt'.
And Shai Cohen will talk briefly about too and also as well as as well, as well (perhaps).
The SRG meets today (April 6), at Jan's house. All but infinitely many interested parties are welcome to attend and to bring some beverage or other.
The plan is to continue the quantifier discussion from last time, by discussing papers by Angelika Kratzer and (Indefinites and the operators they depend on: From Japanese to Salish) and Lisa Matthewson (Quantification and the nature of cross-linguistic variation), in addition to the Ed Keenan paper from last time (Some properties of natural language quantifiers).
At the meeting after this one (April 20), there will again be student presentations. Jan Anderssen will give a practice talk for WCCFL 25, and Shai Cohen will present some of his current work.
If you have something you've been working on that you would like to discuss, please let Florian or Jan know! It doesn't necessarily have to be something that fills an entire meeting --- several people could present small things.
Finally, Florian has put handouts from SALT 16 in his department mailbox, in case you are interested in any of them. Please put these back after copying.
[Thanks Florian!]
The semantics reading group meets today (March 26) at 8:00 pm at Jan Anderssen's house.
First, Florian Schwarz is going to run through the latest version of his SALT 16 talk. That will start right at 8:00 pm, so be sure to be on time if you want to catch that.
Second, at 8:45 pm or so, the group will begin exploring generalized quantifiers. The reading for that:
Keenan, Edward L. 2002. Some properties of generalized quantifiers. Linguistics and Philosophy 25:627-654.
The SRG meets today, at Amy Rose's house, to hear practice talks from Ilaria Frana and Florian Schwarz, both of whom are off soon to SALT 16, in Tokyo. The event begins at 8:00 pm.
On March 9, Ilaria Frana and Florian Schwarz will give practice talks for SALT 16. New location: Amy Rose's place. Start-time as usual: 8:00 pm.
Florian's general's paper, on which his SALT talk will be based, is available here.
On March 16, the group poses the question "Where have all the quantifiers gone?" --- the first in a series of meetings on the foundations and current state of generalized quantifier theory. The group will begin begin with the following paper by Ed Keenan:
Keenan, Edward L. 2002. Some properties of generalized quantifiers. Linguistics and Philosophy 25:627-654.
After spring break, the GQ-series will continue, with the next step probably Angelika Kratzer's recent contribution to the Festschrift for Barbara Partee, which is called 'Indefinites and functional heads: From Japanese to Salish'.
From Florian Schwarz:
The new semester is beginning to stop looking so new, and it's about time to have our first SRG meeting. That will be today (Thursday, February 16). As usual, we'll start at 8:00 pm, and we'll be at Jan's house this week.
We'll continue to discuss Kamp and Partee 1995. We should focus on section 5, i.e., the striped (stri[pt], stri[pəd]?) apple case and the related problem for compositionality. Aynat has an interesting handout by a friend of hers from Israel, and I had prepared that section for the last meeting, so we should be all set. Maybe one or two people could prepare to help us get back to speed on the Osheron-Smith Challenge and supervaluations [We volunteer Chris for this ---WHISC eds.]?
We should also take time to discuss what we are doing this semester! There's only two more SRG's before spring break, and one of those will be practice talks by Ilaria and myself for SALT...
See you Thursday!
Florian
